Stop What Your are Doing Immediately!

And head on over to the King Kong Trailer. Like Kong, the trailer is huge and will take some time to download, but it is totally worth it.

I know, I know, you're saying, "But this is just the umpteenth remake, why should I watch this one?"

Good Question. Quick answer, Peter Jackson, and not because he directed Lord of the Rings, but because his has directed numerous exploitation films. Remember Meet the Feebles? You should. Dead Alive? Bad Taste? No?

Well get off your ass and stop watching that Mark Dornford-May (U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha ?)film you have been told you must see by your overly pretentious friends told you is a must see. After all Roland Emmerich, you know of Godzilla fame, was the jury president for the Berlin Film Festival, so Dornford-May's adaptation of Carmen can wait. (Anyone with any sense knows that King Kong beats Godzilla! Especially a giant iguana Godzilla!) And go to the video store to see these classics of true independant cinema.

Then come back and watch the Kong Trailer after which you can return to the intellectual story. But we do have to do things in the proper order now...dont' we?

Just Got Back From DC

Sorry that I haven't posted over the weekend, but work had me trapped in the nation's capitol. Thus I was unable to see my typical weekend movie dose. In fact, my review of Land of the Dead will have to wait until next week. So much for deadlines. At least the review will be in time for the DVD release.

On Thursday I promise to post about Herbie Fully Loaded and Bewitched both rehashes of longstanding franchises. I hope to like both, but don't expect to. We'll see.

In the meantime...

"Consider the relationship between Kant's Logic and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs..." Discuss amongst yourselves.

Prepare to go insane!

Quick, but important news today.

Fantasy Flight Games will be shipping their resurrection of the classic Arkham Horror boardgame in the next few weeks. As soon as I get it I will write a review.

Attack of the Memes

Okay, I have been tagged by David Scott with a meme he was given by LYT. The questions relate to Books and Movies, but David Scott's wife has extended the meme to include CDs as well. So I will answer all three memes, which will take way too much time.
So here goes.

Books

1. The total number of books:

Well over 2000. But before you rebuke my claim as a mere fiction, or collapse in awe of my academician bibliophilia, understand that at least 130 of these books contain the adventures of one Man of Bronze.

2. The last book I bought:

Did I mention that I don't buy books "one at a time?"

Who the Hell's in It : Portraits and Conversations by Peter Bogdanovich. This book is a great read. Just enough insight into each of the featured personalities to make you want more.

and

Dungeon Master's Guide II. I have been playing D&D since 1980 and will continue for the forseeable future.

and ironically enough:

The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. This is essentially a book long version of this meme.

3. The last book I read:

The Press edited by Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Actually, I am only about half way through the book right now, but that is only because I was reading The Cube and the Cathedral by George Weigel at the same time. I have finished Cube so should be finished with Press soon.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me, in no particular order:

a) The Republic by Plato. No Socrates...No Philosophy. No Republic...No Public Opinion, No Lord of the Rings (or at least the Ring of Geiges parts). Besides without this book, my bookshelves would be a bit more empty.

b) A Princess of Mars. Edgar Rice Burroughs made me want to read. If I never read this book, I would probably been a garbage man today.

c) Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This is the book that helped me transition from "escapist" reading to "literature."

d) The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks. Sword of Shannara is just a retelling of Lord of the Rings with the "innovation" that evil, as external power, is an illusion, but Elfstones is a pretty innovative novel which took me for quite a ride as a young reader.

e) Lost in Place by Mark Salzman. While Mark's personal choices were different from my own, this memoir of his youth really touched me and helped me to understand myself a little better. Salzman is about a decade older than me, about the age of my friend Sean's older brothers, and the way he represents himself combined my image of myself and how I understood my friend's brothers to be. It was as if Salzman was writing a "what if", I had been a part of the "experimental" part of Gen X rather than the "pop cultural" part. Interestingly, many of the events I would have experienced were the same.

Honorable Mentions: The list would be too numerous, which is why these things are ridiculous. But the list would include Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, Micheal Moorcock, Lord Dunsany, Robert Herbert, St. Augustine, Cicero, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Lester Dent, Robert E. Howard, Howard Philips Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman, Clark Ashton Smith...

Movies

1. The total number of Movies I own:

Well over 500, but that is just a guess. I own a lot of DVDs and still have some VHS hiding around the apartment as well.

2. The last movie I bought:

Boogeyman: I liked it in the theater and I still do.

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. The soundtrack features acoustic cover versions of Bowie tunes from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and in Portuguese no less. Wow!

3. The last movie I saw:

Cromwell
Mr. and Mrs. Smith The Pitt/Jolie.
Mr. and Mrs. Smith The Hitchcock. No murder, no mystery, but plenty of suspense. If you consider romantic tension to be suspense. This Hitch romantic comedy displays Hitchcock ability to create wonderful human realationships at its best. You can see similar relations in Lady Vanishes and Stage Fright.
High Tension Picture Identity meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre and that's the vibe.

4. Five movies that mean a lot to me, in no particular order:

a) A Clockwork Orange This film made me re-evaluate everything I had ever thought. It is so shocking, not in the way you are thinking, and radical.

b) Ride the High Country Maybe, just maybe the greatest Western ever made. This film captures all the tropes and makes a truly realistic Western and shadows of Peckinpah's anger (which is best seen in Straw Dogs and The Wild Bunch) are everywhere. But Ride focuses on what it takes to become a hero in a lawless land, and it takes a great deal. Other great Westerns include, Red River, The Searchers, and Rio Bravo. In fact, a list of great westerns with reasons for their greatness could easily fill a small encyclopedia set.

c) Gallipoli. The first Australian "new wave" film I had ever seen. It was one of my grandfather's favorite war movies and he took me to see it in the theater. Peter Weir captures the horrors of war at the same time that he captures the hopeful spirit of the young man.

d) Five Million Years to Earth. Seeing this Hammer Production led me to two of my great entertainment loves, Dr. Who and the Cushing/Lee horror films. Lee will always be Count Dracula to me and not Count Dooku. He is the lord of the undead dammit!

e) Singin' in the Rain This film made me love musicals and Gene Kelly. It is a celebration of what films were once, were at the time of the film, and what they would become in the future. Stanley Donen directed this masterpiece, as well as one of my favorite Cary Grant films...Charade.

Honorable Mentions: Stagecoach, The Quiet Man, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Star Wars, Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, Excalibur, Ladyhawke, Blade Runner, Tron, Ace in the Hole, Double Indemnity, The Maltese Falcon, Swingers, The Breakfast Club, She's Having a Baby, The Lost Boys, Disney's Tarzan, Akira, Kill Bill vol. 1, Five Deadly Venoms, Hard Boiled, Zu: Warriors of Magic Mountain, Big Trouble in Little China, Elmer Gantry, The Music Man, The Blob, The Thing, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, The Howling, Superman, The Wrong Man, The Hidden, Scanners, The Hills Have Eyes, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Permanent Midnight, Father Goose, An Affair to Remember, The Three Musketeers (w/Gene Kelly), Yankee Doodle Dandy, How Green Was My Valley, On the Waterfront, Barry Gordie's The Last Dragon...

CDs

1. The total number of CDs I own:

200+ and a 20 Gig Hard Drive of mp3s.

2. The last CD I bought:

Better Than Ezra: Before the Robots

T Rex: Electric Warrior

3. The last CD I listened too:

Toad the Wet Sprocket: Dulcinea

4. Five CDs that mean a lot to me, in no particular order:

a) Prince: Purple Rain

b) The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys. My friend Ron and I would listen to "Fire in Cairo" as we drove through Reno. We would sing along as Robert Smith belted "F-I-R-E-I-N-C-A-I-R-O" with our best "worst" English accents. After my friend Ron shot himself in the heart in the Spring of 1999, this song helped me focus on the happy times we had together rather than on the big "why" question.

c) Hotel California

d) Metallica: Ride the Lightning

e) Peter Gabriel

Yes!

From the unlinkable IMDB news...

Skywalker As The Joker? It's No Joke


Original Star Wars star Mark Hamill has joined the shortlist of favorites to play The Joker in the Batman Begins sequel. The actor, who played Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi, has become a fan favorite to play Batman's colorful foe. He joins Crispin Glover and Aussie actor Lachy Hulme on the three-strong internet shortlist. Hamill became an obvious choice for some Batman fans after voicing The Joker for the Batman cartoon series. A spokesman for top Batman website Darkhorizons.Com points out, "The net basically picked Christian Bale to play Batman, so who knows." Batman Begins opens across America and Europe this week.

Yes! Mark Hammil deserves another chance... it's been 20 years! Besides, he was an awesome Joker in the Animated Series. He's a talented guy... don't make him Luke Skywalker until he finally passes on.

Don't Call Them Zombies, Fool!

As has been mentioned before, next week will see the release of George A. Romero's Land of the Dead. Let me restate that...the eagerly awaited release of George A. Romero's Land of the Dead. In celebration of this occasion, I have previously posted a review of the Zombies! Boardgame with the promise of more to come.

Well...now is the time for the more. In preparation for this year's film production George Romero teamed up with Tommy Castillo and Rodney Ramos on the comic book release of Toe Tags, the cover of issue #6 (by the awe inspiring Bernie Wrightson) is featured below.



Sadly, this post isn't about Toe Tags. Typical of any comic fan, I am about 6 months behind on my reading. So I haven't gotten around to Toe Tags yet, but that doesn't mean that we are not going to talk about Zombie comic books, because we are. Sadly, (since it takes place in my alma mater city Reno) we won't be talking about Remains. To be honest, it is in the same stack as Toe Tags. You know the stack, the "to be read" stack. The stack that keeps growing.

Instead I would like to introduce you to a wonderful little book called The Walking Dead (read down the interview to get a description).

So why did this book make it off the "to be read" stack and into my hands? Because Robert Kirkman wrote it and Robert Kirkman is a comic book genius, as his recent agreement with Universal makes perfectly clear. You see, Kirkman is a dying breed in the comic book industry. He is a writer with a sense of humor. I wouldn't be surprised to hear he actually has fun crafting comic book stories, whether Superhero or narrative fiction. So when Kirkman is writing a book, I read it immediately and with no delay. Want a sample? As with all things addictive the first time is free. You can read the first issue of Kirkman's ongoing Supers title Invincible at the Image Website. Scroll down to Invincible click on the cover and read away.

But The Walking Dead is a very different book from Invincible. The humor and smart writing is still there, but Dead is a serious piece of zombie entertainment. Maybe the best piece of Zombie media I have seen to date. What makes Dead so remarkable is the manner in which it uses the virtues of its medium. Kirkman understands that he isn't limited by the filmic time constraint of 90 minutes. There is no need to shock us and pull us out. Instead we can explore what it would really mean to live in a world during a Zombie Holocaust. To quote the back cover:

How many hours are in a day when you don't spend half of them watching television?
When is the last time any of us REALLY worked to get something that we WANTED?
The world we knew is gone.
The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility...
In a world ruled by the dead, we are forced to finally start living.

Kirkman captures what is the most terrifying part of any good horror film. What scares us in the long run isn't the brief "gotcha" moments with corresponding "stings." What scares us most is when we see what people can become under certain circumstances. It is in the bleakest of situations that human character is really revealed, and it is often shown to be lacking. Kirkman understands this and is able in his exploration of human behavior in a "dead" world. Kirkman is telling a people story, not a slasher tale, and it is the comic medium which allows for this to happen. But don't take my word that was his intention, let Kirkman speak for himself:

What you now hold in your hands is the most serious piece of work I've done so far in my career...

To me the best zombie movies aren't the splatter fests of gore and violence with goofy characters and tongue in cheek antics. Good zombie movies show us how messed up we are, they make us question our station in society...and our society's station in the world...

With The Walking Dead I want to explore how people deal with extreme situations and how these events CHANGE them.

It looks to me that Kirkman is doing for the Zombie story, what he did for the Superhero comic book. Here is a guy who can write meaningfully without being a trite reactionary or counter-reactionary. He is writing for our enjoyment and for us to think.

Leave your house this very moment and purchase The Walking Dead, or if you are afraid zombies will kill you on the way to the comic shop, you can also buy the first two trades on amazon. In a just world, you would buy them straight from the source at this year's San Diego Comic Con.

Surprise, surprise...

Cinderella Man's not doing so good. Gee, it's as if people don't want to see a movie with Russell Crowe called Cinderella Man. I'm cross-pollinating a bit... I posted on my main blog about this awhile ago, but it seemed better to put my follow-up on here.

Anyway, Hollywood studios need to hire me. Are they really lacking people to say stuff like 'No, Godzilla movies shouldn't be about non-radioactive iguanas that hide instead of smashing stuff' and 'Don't do two puff movies before putting all important information for the prequels in one single, good movie?' What about 'No, gamers aren't idiots; calling the worst movie ever the DND movie will not assure success...' Oh, and 'Stop making the white Christians (you know, the majority of American movie-watchers) the bad guys.'


These are not hard things to figure out, but tens or hundreds of millions of dollars are lost due to a lack of understanding them every year...

Creation Live at the Crystal Cathedral

Ok, here's my full review - as requesting by Number One.

Creation started out very promising. The show is one of those stories within a story, which has a cute little setup of a grandfather and his grandson fishing in a lake and talking about life, the universe and everything. The grandfather is presented as a good old fashioned guy who apparently has some sort of strange new-agey approach to religion in which he refers to God as "the presence" (weird item #1). The kid is your basic skeptical, scientific kid who apparently likes to make himself sound smart by spouting things about "environmental systems" and protesting the fishing for environmental reasons, or something, this part is very clear (a common theme of this show, you are warned).

Anyways, the grandfather offers to tell the kid "the story" (Post-modernist warning, this show is obsessed with making sure you realize this is just a story, or actually worse, that it is just the grandfathers story), of Creation, which is of course the actual thing you went to the show to see. Anyways, we're taken "back in time" to the beginning and for most of the first act we are treated to what can only be described as Cirque de Soilei meets cheap computer animation. It's actually a visual treat, really fun to watch, devoid of anything but entertainment value, and is the best part of the show. Except for this really weird part that looked like a bad 1980s rock video, but it's over very quickly, so just pretend your at a Duran Duran concert for a few minutes.

Then things get weird. There is some far, far too long sequence with Lucifer looking down on Earth from heaven and going on and on in poetic language about the beauty of Creation. (weird thing #2). Now for some reason, I should warn you right now you should get used to this, because Lucifer is the biggest character in the show, has the most speaking and stage time, and chews the scenery like Marlon Brando in an all you can eat cafe. It almost makes you wonder if some neo-pagan didn't sneak in and rewrite the script when no one was looking and is off stage somewhere snickering. Anyway, I digress, Lucifer is really cool, maybe too cool, and it greatly disturbed me to realize I was watching this in a church.

Anyways, then they have the creation of the animals, complete with really cool "Lion King" esque puppetry. My three year old was capivated and this was clearly her favorite part of the show. I suggest you stay for this part, get your moneys worth and then leave and go watch Constantine. Which had better theology than the rest of this show, and that's not saying much.

Then man is created. By now, if you are a Christian, maybe even if you aren't, familiar Bible verses should start popping into your head. If you want to enjoy the rest of the show, ban them from your head because they aren't here. God does not show up. The closest thing to God in this show is a giant tower of gossamer material that Adam and Eve emerge from. God is never even mentioned in the show, but referred to as "the presence". So He certainly doesn't have any speaking parts, not even as a disembodied voice. There is no Adam and Eve walking and talking with God. There are two Adams and two Eves, for reasons that are never explained. All four of them go into the gossamer material tower and it is implied by the grandfather that they are having sex - all four of them apparently, something that totally wierded out my mother-in-law. (whoever said this was a family friendly show needs some serious talking to, but it gets worse so read on).

Anyways, the second half the show would best be described as the last temptation of Eve. There is a whole lot of Lucifer, some really weird sequence that is some sort of demonic ritual rendition of the snake tempting Eve to eat the apple, which here because Lucifer seducing Eve and having some sort of dance orgy with her and a bunch of fallen angels. (again, who called this family friendly?)

In the end, it is implied that the fall had nothing to do with Adam and Eve disobeying God, but was instead about Lucifer destroying God's creation by introducing Eve to the ideas of unbridled sexuality. There is something really weird and Freudian going on here, but I can't quite put my finger on it, go see it for yourself and explain it to me, if you can figure it out. And then the angels wander around all sad, everything turns into lava and fire and then there is some song that speaks vaguely of a new hope. (Kind of a far cry from God's promise in Genesis 3, but maybe that's just me)

And then we are back in the present with the grandfather and his grandson. His grandson says some things that imply that he respects his grandfather's faith now. I don't know why, since "the presence" seems to create the world for no reason, then completely abandon it, while Lucifer runs around all willy-nilly seducing people in this show, but whatever. I've seen an interview where the writer for the show (Dr. Schuller's daughter) said she didn't want to endorse any one religion, and she pulls that off, but basically ends up with something that will likely offend just about anyone who has any kind of serious thoughts on Creation, evolutionist and creationist alike, or simply be entertaining fluff with no serious meaning for anyone who doesn't. I was tremendously disappointed by the outcome of the show, even if the first half was entertaining. Nonetheless, go see it. It's more fun than a lot of stage shows I've seen, but, as I said on my other blog, DO NOT SEE IT FOR THE THEOLOGY!

A cartoon Cathy Seipp might enjoy.

One of the common themes of Cathy's World is the wishy washy-ness of many Boomer, and I imagine GenX as well, parents with regards to raising their children.

My wife, when she was in film school, would come out to the calm oasis that is Mayberry (I mean Glendora) where I work every Friday. During these times she would work on her screenplays at the local Starbuck because they would let her plug in for hours on end. But there was one major drawback, parents who didn't know how to discipline their kids. My parents used to tell me when I was 12 or 13, back when I was raising my sister, that I was much older than my sister and thus should act the adult. Well, a part of acting the adult is understanding that children are not adults. In fact, they are prone to screaming out their desires, especially if you are constantly giving in to their every whim.

Be a True American! Do Your Part to Save the Merch!

As I reported in Apparently kid's don't watch enough TV the WB is planning on cancelling Kids WB on weekdays. This could have enormously bad consequences.

As we all know, due to an evil curse cast upon him by a cruel wizard, the Merch needs children to purchase Merch related products on a regular basis. He needs this even if it forces children's parents into unrecoverable debt. Otherwise he will become the hideous Fleshreaper (see above enormously bad consequences).

Thankfully, the men at Penny Arcade, unlike Kids WB, have got us covered.

Go and buy your Merch Merchandise now!

Psychics? We don't need no stinkin' Psychics?

Sidekicks on the other hand...those we need.


The hot news on IMDB today is the new FOX series "The Inside." Here's a brief description of the show:

"The Inside" Premieres Tonight, 9/8C on FOX

Rachel Nichols stars as rookie FBI agent Rebecca Locke in the new FOX series, "The Inside". Locke is brought into Los Angeles's Violent Crimes Unit, which deals with the most taxing and dangerous cases, by Virgil "Web" Webster (Peter Coyote). Webster is obsessed with solving cases, so much so that Agent Paul Ryan (Jay Harrington), who becomes Rebecca's partner, believes Webster will sacrifice members of his own team to do so. Both Ryan and Webster know that Rebecca is something special, however, for her past allows her special insight into the minds and motives of those they hunt. Visit the official site for more information about "The Inside" including photos, message boards, cast profiles and more. "The Inside" premieres tonight at 9/8C on FOX.

Sound familiar? Hmm... sounds pretty familiar. Well except that Rebecca has "special insight," ala Will Graham of Manhunter, instead of psychic powers. I guess giving her psychic powers would make the show too much like Profiler. Remember Profiler?

Ally Walker stars as Dr. Sam Waters, a psychic detective with the Violent Crimes Task Force, a federal agency which often works with the FBI, ATF, and other crime-solving agencies. The VCTF investigates and solves such crimes, and continually chases the elusive man known anonymously as Jack, who has haunted Dr. Waters for years.

But similarity to a cancelled show is alright, right? After all, maybe there is a place for this kind of thing, even if that place is Medium on NBC.

Allison DuBois (Arquette) is a strong-willed young mother of three, a devoted wife and law student who begins to suspect that she can talk to dead people, see the future in her dreams and read people's thoughts. Fearing for her mental health, she turns for support to her husband Joe (Jake Weber, "U-571"), an aerospace engineer, who slowly comes to believe that what his wife is telling him just might be true. The real challenge is convincing her boss, D.A. Devalos (Miguel Sandoval) -- and the other doubters in the criminal justice system -- that her psychic abilities can give them the upper hand when it comes to solving violent and horrifying crimes whose mysteries often reside with those who live beyond the grave.

Now I am not usually the first person to gripe about "copycat films," in fact I defended Armageddon to friends who said it was like Deep Impact, but this is ridiculous.

Wait...this gives me an idea for a show.

Patrick Macnamara is a single father of two with a dual curse. Patrick can see the future, but only two parts of it. The first part, he has used to promote his writing career by writing advance speculative scripts. Jack can see television shows two years before they come out and he writes what he sees. The second part, and the part that frightens Patrick, is that he keeps seeing the murder of Hollywood executives, brutal murders and he sees them through the murderers eyes. In fact...these murders are exactly two years away. Can Patrick continue to advance his career and take care of his family. What is the connection between Patrick's gift and the murders? Who is responsible and why are there so many shows about psychics?

Busy Weekend Ahead

This weekend sees the release of a number of films I want to see. Top among them, but one I will probably have to wait for a wider release for, is Howl's Moving Castle

Naturally, this kind of hope-filled animated adventure can only be followed by a film guaranteed to "scare the living hell out of me." Or at least that is what I hope High Tension will do. Based on "industry" reception of this film, High Tension director Alexandre Aja has been given the director's chair for the remake of the Hills Have Eyes. The original Wes Craven version of Hills was a fun romp when I was younger, so I hope the remake will be as entertaining/disturbing.

I don't really know what High Tension is about, except that the preview features a beautiful woman beating someone to death with a barbed wire coated 2x4 while Sonic Youth plays in the background. What more can you ask for?

Well, I guess you could ask for that song to actually be in the film, but that (like asking for the trailer song for Underworld to actually be in the film) is requesting too much.

Apparently the moral of the story, based solely on previews is either:

Don't go to a remote bungalow to prepare for College Exams.

or

Don't mess with college students who are willing to go to a remote bungalow to prepare for College Exams.

I look forward to finding out which.

Speaking of looking forward. This week is also the release weekend for Doug Liman's newest big budget film Mr. and Mrs. Smith. A film with tropes which should be familiar to anyone who has seen both True Lies and Spy Kids, but directed by the cool as hell director of Swingers and The Bourne Identity. Think of it as a cool Spy Kids prequel. That's how I look at it.